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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentForewordOn behalf of the IBM Center for The Business of Government,we are pleased to present this report, Working the Network:A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government, by InesMergel, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, MaxwellSchool of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.As of this writing, the federal government operates over 1,000Twitter feeds. Federal civilian agencies maintain over 360Twitter feeds, while the Department of Defense hosts morethan 650. In addition to its official English feed, the StateDepartment produces Twitter feeds in Turkish, Farsi, Arabic,Spanish, and French. It is fair to say that the federal govern- Jonathan D. Breulment is embracing Twitter as a tool for citizen engagement.But is government realizing the panoply of benefits that a com-prehensive understanding of this tool promises? Beyond act-ing as a broadcasting channel—supplementing the website bypromoting press releases or announcing new initiatives—Twittercan help agencies follow public conversations on issues relevantto their organizations.Like many technological tools, Twitter does not come with aninstruction manual. To help both government executives whomust decide whether Twitter is a useful tool for their organiza-tions and frontline managers who will create and administer theTwitter account, Ines Mergel has written this guide, detailing the Maria-Paz Barrientosbenefits—and risks—of hosting a Twitter feed, as well as thespecifics on how to maintain a Twitter feed to achieve optimumresults. 4

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgGovernment organizations that have not yet established aTwitter account can use this guide to learn the steps that theyneed to take to get up and running. For more advanced users,this guide offers advice on how to reap greater benefits fromTwitter—including how to use it for analytics and how to takethe next step and use the data to increase the scope of anorganization’s Twitter network.In addition to the information about Twitter itself, this guidepresents material about the expanding ecosystem that isgrowing up around Twitter. Applications like Klout, TweetDeck,HootSuite, and Instagram add new kinds of functionality andmake Twitter feeds more valuable both to government and tocitizens who subscribe to their feeds.Finally, this guide includes numerous examples of how federalagencies are effectively using Twitter. Both newcomers andold hands will learn how organizations across government areemploying this important tool to help them accomplish theirmission in new and innovative ways. We hope that this guidewill be useful in increasing understanding about the use ofan important social media tool, Twitter, which is now beingdeployed across the federal government.Jonathan D. Breul Maria-Paz BarrientosExecutive Director Organization and People LeaderIBM Center for The Business of Government IBM Global Business Servicesjonathan.d.breul @ us.ibm.com maria.barrientos @ us.ibm.com@BusOfGovernment @MPBarrientos 5

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentExecutive SummaryTwitter—a microblogging service that allows for short updates of 140 characters—has grownto over 540 million registered accounts as of early 2012. News organizations, corporations,and the U.S. government have adopted this new practice as an innovative form of interactionwith their stakeholders. Many government agencies maintain at least one Twitter account,and even multiple accounts, based on their operational needs and their diverse audiences. Itcan be unclear to government Twitter users what the best strategies are for interacting withthe public on Twitter, and how an agency can use Twitter in a meaningful way to support itsorganizational mission.Twitter updates are seen as public conversations and are increasing not only transparency andpotentially accountability, but can also—when used appropriately—lead to increased inclu-sion of public opinion in policy formulation through information aggregation processes. Twittercan be used effectively to involve a large number of citizens and create conversations with anengaged, networked public. The outcome of these conversations can be new insights and eveninnovations in the public sector including suggestions on how to make government more effec-tive, or rapidly accelerating emergency responses that help to improve public safety.This report is based on insights gained from discussions with social media directors in U.S.federal government agencies and observations of their daily Twitter tactics. Part I provides anoverview of current strategies for using Twitter to interact with citizens. Four main strategiesare identified:• Push• Pull• Networking• Customer serviceIn addition, hands-on best practices are presented for both public managers and social mediaadministrators.Twitter is still a relatively new tool. The platform frequently changes and features are added ormoved, so government organizations need to be flexible and react to the changes. Suggestionson how to overcome both the technological and behavioral challenges are provided, andexamples of best practices show how agencies have overcome these hurdles.It will be important for the future use of social media in the public sector to show how invest-ments in content curating and online interactions affect a government organization. Currentmeasurement techniques are provided to help social media managers create a business casefor the effective use of social media. 6

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgPart II of the report explains the main Twitter functions. The platform has many innovative fea-tures and emerging memes that public managers need to be aware of. These include retweets,@-replies, hashtags, direct messaging, Twitter falls, lists, and advance search functions.Finally, the Appendixes provide other resources, including other government Twitter guides,official Twitter.com resources, social media-related Twitter hashtags, the National Archive andRecords Administration’s social media recordkeeping guidelines, and an overview of govern-ment regulations, acts, and policies that guide Twitter use in the public sector. 7

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government 8

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgPart I:Using Twitter in Government 9

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentIntroduction to Twitter as aSocial Media ToolAbout 700 different departments, agencies, initiatives,and teams within the U.S. federal government have setup a total of 1,015 Twitter accounts. Over 60 percentof these Twitter accounts are used by the Department ofDefense.Microblogging is a form of blogging that allows users towrite brief text updates (usually 140 characters). Themicroblogging service most popular today is Twitter.Twitter is used for 140-character-long updates that canpoint a user to other rich media content on a govern-ment organization’s website. The service is often used tointeract with an agency’s audience. Public-sector applica-tions include, for example, the active distribution of mission-relevant information, informationsearches, emergency alerts, and public diplomacy. A more indirect, almost passive, way touse Twitter includes citizen network participation or just following public conversations aboutrelevant issues.Twitter’s founders describe their approach to the service as an online short messaging service(SMS) that makes short updates independent of a cell phone and moves the interactions intoa web browser. Like users of Facebook and other social media platforms, Twitter users set uppersonal accounts and follow the updates of other users. Twitter uses an asymmetric followermodel, which means that contact requests don’t have to be confirmed; the result is that usersmay have a high number of followers compared with the numbers of accounts they them-selves are following.The core of the service is the news feed that automatically displays updates from those whoman account holder actively chooses to follow, as the screenshot shows.Many users combine Twitter updates with other social media accounts and automatically postupdates to their news feed from Facebook, blogs, or other content-sharing sites, such as Flickror YouTube. The rich-media sharing function allows Twitter updates to extend the characterlimit of 140 words; and pictures, links to websites, or videos can be embedded in a tweet (aTwitter update), so that readers are directed to longer versions and texts outside of Twitter oron a government agency’s website.Figure 1 shows the journey of a tweet:• Different types of media content can be used to compose a tweet. It can include a link to content on a government website, a picture, or video.• The status update with the question “What’s happening?” describes the posted content in 140 characters or fewer. 10

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.org• An organization’s Twitter update can automatically be posted as status updates on a Facebook page, retweeted by other users, reused in the blogosphere, or embedded on an agency’s website using a widget.Figure 1: Crafting and Using Twitter UpdatesUnderstanding the reach and effectiveness of social media engagement can help make the casefor the use of tools like Twitter. Figure 2 shows that social media updates can travel through amultitude of channels in comparison with the traditional website publication mechanism.Traditionally, formal press releases, memos, or other news are added by a web manager to anagency’s website. While there are a few mechanisms, such as mailing lists, to direct the rightaudiences to the website, most of the traffic is anonymous. Beyond hits on the website, thereis relatively little insight available into the web audience.Figure 2: Adding Social Media Channels to the Communication Mission 11

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentSocial media channels like Twitter, on the other hand, allow for the reuse of messages, forredistribution of official government content in a snowballing mechanism through each user’snetwork and through a diverse set of social media platforms. Once a message is posted, it canpotentially reach unlimited numbers of citizens. Messages can automatically be reposted onother social media channels, such as Facebook. Moreover, as the graphic shows, interactionscan easily occur in a bi-directional, reciprocated manner. Twitter is therefore opening possibili-ties for interactive exchanges that traditional websites currently do not allow.The brevity of microblogs creates distinct opportunities and drawbacks different from thoseof a full blog. For government, Twitter can simply consist of references to online resourcesfocused on an organization’s news, events or other public information—pulling audiences backto an agency’s website.Similar to weblogs, microblogging services are used to distribute mission-relevant informa-tion. Beyond the distribution of information that is posted on blogs or on an agency’s website,microblogs have the additional advantage that Twitter messages are directly delivered intosubscribers’ news feeds and are thereby reaching followers directly or indirectly when mes-sages are forwarded, potentially resulting in government agencies reaching unlimited numbersof people. Among the overall top trending topics of 2010 were two in which the U.S. govern-ment was heavily involved: the BP Gulf oil spill and the Haiti earthquake.1 In 2011, the top10 trending topics worldwide included the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the Libyan conflict,Egyptian protests, or Bin Laden updates.2In the past three years, Twitter has grown significantly to over 500 million registered accountsin early 2012. News organizations, corporations, and more recently, government agenciesadopted this trend. Many government agencies now maintain at least one Twitter account—some even manage multiple accounts, based on their operational needs and their diverseaudiences. Some agencies often use their Twitter news feed as a parallel publishing stream—repurposing existing formal announcements, such as press releases, to distribute them throughan additional channel.Why should an agency jump on the Twitter bandwagon? Agencies must first think about theirmission. Who is the audience? It is generally not the “American public;” instead, each agencyhas very specific constituents and choosing the right tool should follow the preferences of theaudience. In fact, a government agency’s audience usually consists of many heterogeneousconstituencies with different expectations and habits regarding how they prefer to receive offi-cial government information. Twitter is one of the channels where citizens are talking abouttopics relevant to the mission that guides the work of a government agency. People are dis-cussing issues online and there is value in knowing what they are saying about the agency,and knowing how the issues an agency is promoting are discussed online. Twitter has evolvedinto an instrument that allows agencies to be part of the conversation or at least to listen inand help with fact-finding or damage control.Twitter updates, or tweets, can be described as public conversations and are improving notonly transparency and accountability, but can also, when used appropriately, lead to increasedinclusion of public opinion into policy formulation through information aggregation processes.Twitter can be used effectively to involve large numbers of citizens and create conversationswith an engaged, networked public. The outcome of these conversations can be new insightsand even innovations in the public sector, in response to suggestions on how to make government1. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/13/twitter-peoples-voice-fifth-birthday?CMP=twt_gu for a detailed report and(http://blog.twitter.com/2010/12/hindsight2010-top-trends-on-twitter.html) for a discussion on the official Twitter blog.2. See http://mashable.com/2011/12/06/top-twitter-trends-2011/ for a full list of top Twitter trends in 2011. 12

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgmore effective. Other ways to use Twitter can be simple repostings of vital emergency informa-tion in areas beyond the direct reach of government, thus transporting the information to thoseaudiences not visiting government websites on a regular basis.The following tweet, posted by the Department of Homeland Security during the 2011 hurri-cane and earthquake, encourages citizens to specifically use Twitter.com to update their familymembers instead of overburdening traditional channels such as landlines or mobile phones.The number of retweets (displayed 100+) shows that many citizens were willing to repostthis information and spread the message.As Lee Rainie, the director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project,says: “The common reputation of Twitter is that it’s frivolous, which isn’t the case. If it’s setup right, it’s a rich environment of lots of learning and sharing of important material. It’s notjust ‘what I had for breakfast.’”Using Twitter in effective ways is not about creating new content or services but rather tak-ing advantage of the new delivery methods for content curating. Twitter is very easy to set upand maintain. The use of Twitter can be compared to short text messaging services on mobilephones and updates can either come through a web interface or a text-enabled phone.On April 14, 2010, the Library of Congress announced that it had acquired the entire Twitterarchive—a step forward in reducing some of the hesitation social media directors, especiallyin the federal government, were facing. Up to that point, it was unclear how to keep publicrecords of Twitter messages—or any messages created on social networking services. TheLibrary of Congress’ collaboration with the microblogging site Twitter.com now creates a lifetimearchive of all Twitter updates ever sent, but it doesn’t necessarily relieve government agenciesof the responsibility to archive their own records. It does, however, help users to access theirdata, given that Twitter only displays the last two weeks of updates on its website.With shrinking travel budgets, Twitter users have also shown that the service is useful as aback channel during presentations at conferences, to follow ongoing conversations that canhelp to bridge geographic distances. Other uses include simple informational updates, ranging 13

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Governmentfrom the UK’s Downing Street summaries of the prime minister’s daily activities and priorities(@DowningStreet), San Diego County’s Twitter feed with general countywide information(@SanDiegoCounty), or Roanoke County Public Libraries’ Twitter feed with prolific informationrelated to new titles, upcoming events, etc. (@RoCoPubLib). These updates can also includeadvice for updates on infrastructure, construction issues, or even complaint reporting that canbe combined with ongoing campaigns.While social media in general have become an accepted forum for public engagement in gov-ernment, many public managers struggle with effective use and are looking for insights intohow to use social media, as the following tweet by EPA’s social media lead Jeff Levy shows.With the recent advent of the so-called social media revolutions in North Africa and the MiddleEast, attention to the usefulness of Twitter as an important organizing, information-sharing,and general networking service has increased. It is not only to understand how citizens areusing Twitter as an organizing tool, but also to use Twitter as a tool that helps to take thetemperature of citizens (groups).3Twitter chose the U.S. Geological Survey as its first government business case study andfeatured the agency on its site:3. See Gov2.0 Blog Radio show with Major Juanita Chang, U.S. Army Director, Online and Social Media Division, Office of the Chiefof Public Affairs, and Matt MacLaughlin from SCoE Mobile http://gov20radio.com/upcoming-u-s-army-social-and-mobile-victories-and-challenges/ (March 13, 2011). 14

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government Developing Strategies for the Use of Twitter In government, Twitter can be used for many different purposes. The daily tactics depend on the overall social media strategy an agency designs to fulfill the organizational mission. The resulting day-to-day interactions can be divided into four main Twitter strategies: • Push • Pull • Networking • Customer service The following table provides a summary of the strategies described on the following pages.Table 2: Overview of Twitter Strategies Organizational Number of Strategy Tactic Business Value Policy Resources Information Vetting Responsibility Accounts Push IT department Representation Informational No One account None Typical information broadcasting interactions for the clearing process allowed, whole as for any public commenting agency statement disabled Pull Public Affairs Engagement Educational Dedicated Official Dedicated Information vetting office social media public social media for repurposed policy (i.e., affairs department statements; ad commenting account with staff hoc interactions policy) plus agency and budget accounts Networking Knowledge Mingling Transactional Open Unrestricted Dedicated Information vetting experts & empowering exchanges social media for repurposed with social department, statements; ad media incl. staff and hoc interactions; guidelines budget “responsible Plus expert exchanges” accounts Customer Dedicated Transaction Relationship Social Preferably Social media Repurposing Service customer building, media one, if department of standard service instant strategy and necessary with the help responses, representative support policy several for of knowledge FAQs, but also different experts individualized content throughout responses in areas the accordance with organization the existing policies 16

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgStrategy One: PushThe first strategy can be called push: Twitter is used as an extension of the existing (usuallyrelatively static) Internet presence as an additional communication channel to get the messageout. This results in (relatively unmoderated) Twitter updates that are mainly used to publishpress releases or appearances of the secretaries.As one agency social media director explains: “Let’s put it this way, maybe it’s 1/100th of myweek being applied to this, because we have everything automated. We want to take a buck-shot approach, as long as it does not take up a ton of our resources. As long as we can man-age that, there’s no reason not to go out there and be able to communicate with the people inthe form in which they are comfortable. It is all through word of mouth. Whoever is out theregetting it has found a real value for it, and it will get to the point where we will be comfort-able enough to at least somewhat publicize this. And once we somewhat publicize this, moreand more people will get on there. It is easier for people to get notified of things if they areusing Twitter. If they have Twitter open all the time, it’s easier to tell them about that. Peopleare using that, almost as much as they’re using e-mail now.”Strategy Two: PullTwitter can also be used to bring audiences back toan agency’s website, where the news is aggregated(to avoid losing control of what happens with theinformation). Pull strategies actively involve audi-ences using some degree of interaction that results ina few retweets (reuses of messages by other Twitterusers) or answers to comments on responses fromTwitter followers. Examples include the CDC’s useof social media tools to alert and inform the publicabout peanut salmonella outbreak, or its H1N1 flucampaign. Another example is an active engagementtactic, such as Newark Mayor Corey Booker’s use ofTwitter during the 2010–2011 snowstorms in NewJersey. He used Twitter to actively inform the publicabout snow removal and his personal help with andengagement in the process.Another example of an efficient pull strategy isUSGS’s “Did you feel it?” platform requesting citi-zens’ experiences of an earthquake. While the resultsare not meant to compete with scientific evidence,the so-called citizen scientists are providing insightsbeyond the officially collected data and provide anadditional layer of interaction with the public.The Figure 3 reports the “felt intensity” as experiencedby the public. USGS states on its website: “We canget a more complete description of what people experi-enced, the effects of the earthquake, and the extent ofdamage, than traditional ways of gathering felt informa-tion.” The magnitude is quantitatively measured on aRichter scale recorded by a seismograph; the intensityis a qualitative measure of the effects of the earth- 17

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Governmentquake. Intensity information is gathered in an Internet survey and responses are displayed onthe USGS Community Intensity Map.Figure 3: USGS—Did You Feel It? Earthquake Community Internet Intensity MapIn addition, USGS compiles tweets of Twitter users mentioning the keywords or hashtag“earthquake” in their Twitter status updates, and displays them on a map. The USGS TwitterEarthquake Detector (TED) automatically collects messages and provides narrative accounts offelt earthquake intensities in real time on a geo-tagged map, visualizing how citizens perceivethe intensity of an earthquake in their neighborhood:Figure 4: USGS Twitter Earthquake Detector (TED)Source: http://recovery.doi.gov/press/us-geological-survey-twitter-earthquake-detector-ted/ 18

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgStrategy Three: NetworkingThe third strategy—and at the same time the least observable—is a networking strategy.Twitter can be used in highly interactive ways with a lot of back and forth between theagency and its diverse constituencies. By closely observing the agency’s Twitter encounters,an account holder will quickly get a sense of who is following them and who they shouldbe reaching. Twitter can be used very strategically, not only to control and direct messagesto influencers in the network, but also to have eyes and ears on the channels where actualissues relevant to an agency’s mission are being discussed.Examples for networking tactics include the innovative use of hashtags, such as theDepartment of State’s use of the hashtag #AskState that was used as an online town hallmeeting. Citizens were prompted to use the hashtag to ask questions.Leading up to the event, the hashtag#AskState was used to collect ques-tions for the speakers. Questionswere answered during the live event,and the speakers also had an oppor-tunity to directly respond and reactto real-time feedback on Twitter.Since the event, the hashtag remainsin use and the Department of Stateresponds to ongoing questions posedby citizens, moving the time-boundcampaign into a continuous conver-sation mode. This strategy helps tofacilitate issue networks and helpsthe department to be part of thenetwork, reacting to discussions andquestions by providing facts and for-mal statements. 19

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentStrategy Four: Customer ServiceThe most challenging strategy is to use Twitter as an actual customer service delivery tool.Examples of companies in private industry which actively provide customer service on Twitterinclude Southwest Airlines, Hewlett Packard, Yelp, Xbox, Etsy, and Comcast customer serviceon Twitter (@ComcastCares). All provide strong e-service via social media technologies. Goingforward, government agencies have the opportunity to think about ways in which social mediacan be used for ongoing customer service.In 2011, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed agencies to set service stan-dards and use customer feedback to improve the customer experience. Agencies and depart-ments are currently following up with implementation plans, establishing customer servicetask forces, and finding ways to use innovative technologies. Twitter can be used to collectfeedback from citizens, but also to provide timely responses. While this pace might challengethe current standard operating procedures of providing or even collecting input from citizens,OMB provides additional guidance on how to ensure the maximum quality of information pro-vided in these exchanges.National museums and libraries are using Twitter in innovative ways to provide real-time assis-tance for requests posted by researchers, teachers, and students. Others are using Twitter toprovide information that is not available on their websites, including behind-the-scenes newson an ongoing exhibition. 20

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.org Best Twitter Practices for Public ManagersDesign a social media strategy that helps fulfill the mission of your organization.Think about what the strategic goals are, what the content is that your organization is produc-ing, what the potential channels for the content distribution are, and how Twitter might fit intothis overall strategy as one channel for interacting with the stakeholders of your organization.Design and distribute social media tactics according to your social media strategy.What is appropriate content to share? Who needs to be involved in:• Broadcasting of routine updates• Ad hoc crisis communication• Fact-checking missions• Online, ongoing customer serviceDesign information vetting procedures.Where is the content coming from? Who needs to be involved in the content curating process?What does a stepwise information review process look like?Assign manpower to staff and update social media accounts.Dedicate resources and capacity to those people in your organization who should take on theadditional (or sole) responsibility to curate content, respond to social media interactions, andoverall, maintain social media accounts. Once you decide to open the social media toolbox,citizens will expect real-time information exchanges with their government.Provide resources to train social media personnel.Think about a social media sourcing strategy. There needs to be a core social media teamwhich takes on the heavy workload, but also knows whom to include when they themselvesdon’t have the answers and need to reach out to knowledge experts deeper in the organiza-tion. Increase awareness that social media is not a technology function, but the responsibilityof all employees in the organization. Distribute the workload across many shoulders.Learn how to interpret social media data.Enable your social media team to collect social media data, look at the data frequently, andunderstand how to interpret these data to understand the impact your agency is making. Beprepared to adjust your overall social media strategy if needed.Fail, fail, fail … fast.Social media platforms are hosted, designed, and frequently changed by third-party provid-ers. This might mean that because of the fast pace of platform changes, but also because ofchanges in your audience’s social media behavior, your staff might make mistakes. Be sure totackle mistakes head on: don’t retract or delete published updates. Someone will have alreadyretweeted your content, saved it in a blog post, and copied it to their own hard drive. Be openand transparent, admit mistakes, and publish the corrected facts. 21

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government Best Practices for AdministratorsAll social media interactions need to follow your organization’s social media strategy andresulting daily tactics.The strategy will include information about acceptable social media content, tools, and socialmedia channels, and will help you manage your day-to-day updates.Don’t do it on your own!A social media team should be responsible for the main functions, but reach out to knowledgeexperts if you can’t answer the questions you receive via Twitter on your own. You will raiseyour reputation by including those in your organization who have specialist-level knowledgeabout issues.Daily content curating.Public affairs officials are not necessarily theones who can curate all content. Set up routinesto search for updates or encourage those creat-ing news in your organization to provide contentthat can be distributed through your social mediachannels. Think about when to respond, retweet,or comment on your audience’s tweets. Followthe EPA’s cheat sheet, “Should I Respond OnlineOn EPA’s Behalf?” (shown).Find a human voice.Twitter is a great tool to provide agency informa-tion in plain language. Use IDs or other typesof author identification so that your audienceknows who is tweeting with them this week, ona specific day, or during a campaign or event.Remember that Twitter is a public conversation!Keep routine updates among your team.Prepare routines that will alert your team about upcoming events, schedule updates andresponses, and line up automatic updates that reach out to difference audiences at differenttimes throughout the day. Don’t spam or you will lose your audience!Make sure to distinguish between your personal social media accounts and the organizationalaccounts you are responsible for.Your updates on behalf of a government organization might be temporary. You might move onto other types of jobs or assume other responsibilities. Use a Twitter account name that canstay with the organization or team when your responsibilities change.Get training in social media data analysis. Use free tools, such as Google Analytics, Facebookanalytics, or Klout to understand how your audience perceives its interactions with youragency. Create a business case for your social media impact and acquire additional resourcesto build a professional suite of analytics tools. 22

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgOvercoming Challenges for theUse of Twitter in GovernmentTwitter’s API and its users’ behavior are evolving and changing in sometimes unpredictableways. This makes it necessary to consider how to mitigate the risks involved in using a third-party website with its own rules and evolving user behavior.Twitter use patterns have emerged as innovators in government use social media for customerservice. For several years, these practices have evolved, becoming acceptable use practices ingovernment. Several OMB directives published in 2010 have helped to promote and regulatethe safe use of social media applications. Nevertheless, there are several open issues result-ing from agencies’ initial experience with Twitter. Among them is the question of personal vs.organizational use.Account VerificationTweeting on behalf of a government agency is typically interpreted as formalguidance and formal opinions broadcast by government. It is important forusers to understand whether an account set up in an agency’s name is anofficially sanctioned account. Initially, Twitter endorsed accounts through averification process. Accounts then received a blue checkmark next to theirname, so that it was clear that the account holder was tweeting in an officialcapacity.New accounts can be registered on HowTo.gov. 23

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentIn addition, GSA has a developed a verification tool to ensure credibility of a governmentTwitter account. The following screenshot shows GSA’s Social Media Registry that can be usedto search for a verified account.Fast Pace of Updates and Platform ChangesMonitoring ongoing conversations on Twitter provides great insights for government, but at thesame time that fast pace of updates and postings has changed the way that Twitter accountholders create content and respond to messages. Fast-evolving conversations leave little or notime for content vetting with the legal counsel of a government agency. Instead, the expecta-tions of citizens are high to receive near real-time feedback. As one social media director in afederal agency notes: “For Twitter and Facebook there is no real clearance process. We haveadvocated very, very hard that there shouldn’t be one, because of the nature of Twitter, yougotta be on top of it. It’s a timely type of platform, everything’s time-sensitive, and any type ofclearance process really can obviate the whole purpose of using it.”Platform changes are inevitable and cannot be controlled with free social media providers asthey are in other types of purchased software tools, where vetting processes are in place tomake sure that the changes don’t affect existing standard operating procedures. Some agencieshave decided to only host one central account; others provide freedom to all teams, satelliteoffices, and knowledge experts to maintain their own accounts.To keep up with the fast pace of changes, training is necessary to help account holders under-stand the medium, overcome initial resistance to writing freely online, and ensure that mistakesare retracted or honestly addressed. 24

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgDisclaimers: Personal Use vs. Organizational AccountsAll official government Twitter accounts should include a disclaimer or terms of service state-ment. As an example, the White House Twitter account explicitly states that the messages arearchived, implying that they are part of the public record of the White House and not privatemessages: “Official WH twitter account. Comments and messages received through officialWH pages are subject to the PRA and may be archived. Learn more http://wh.gov/privacy(linking directly to the White House privacy page: http://www.whitehouse.gov/privacy). Manygovernment agencies also use Twitter’s Bio section to identify the authors of tweets, thusproviding additional information about the agency or individual that manages the account. Asa result, many White House social media sites and profiles include the statement above alert-ing users to the fact that the content is subject to the Presidential Records Act.Scheduling Routines and Automating Social Media AccountsRoutines to automatically send out tweets can come in handy for already scheduled events. Ifan agency is organizing a three-day conference and knows that reminders for the event shouldbe sent out at specific times leading up to the event, desktop applications such as TweetDeck(recently acquired by Twitter) provide the tools to schedule a specific time for a tweet to besent out.Or, as soon as an agency has published an update to its blog, photo, or video-sharing sites,an automatic message is sent out on Twitter pointing to the new content. The website allowsthird-party applications to access the Twitter API and automatically post updates to a personalTwitter account. This also means that publishing rights are handed over to another application,which can potentially compromise an account.Automatic @-replies or mentions are a violation of Twitter’s rules. Twitter also discouragesautomatic retweets of trending topics or keywords, even if an account holder considers thesekeywords of interest to his or her followers. In government, this practice is especially difficult,as retweeting or automatic forwarding can be considered endorsement.One social media director in a federal agency explains her approach: “Twitter is a by-productof the work we already do. Here’s what I mean by that. When my team posts a press release, 25

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government or a media advisory, or a speech, as soon as they post it, they go to Twitter and post a tweet, or they tweet that item. And we have an automated feed that feeds all of those into the Facebook page.” Specific, verified content can, however, be easily distributed to several different social media outlets. Public emergency alerts sent out through an agency’s website, text messages, Amber Alert system, etc., can also automatically be posted to Twitter using third-party applications. For example, the following tweet was sent out through a service called HootSuite, a social media dashboard solution that helps users organize their social media accounts in one single application. Another example is the Los Angeles Fire Department’s automatic Twitter emergency ser- vices updates. In a similar fashion, the CDC is using Twitter to alert the general public about national health threats:Tip: Time messagesstrategically! Don’toverburden theaudience. 26

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.org Reusing already tweeted messages can be another form of automation or scheduling. An agency can repost one of its own previous tweets several times per week or at different times throughout the day. It’s important to rewrite the initial message so that it does not annoy those followers who are frequently checking in and paying attention to the majority of updates. Distribute the Workload Using Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and photo-sharing sites in addition to formal communication tools can become overwhelming at times. Distributing the workload to many helping hands can reduce the burden on a single employee. Consider, for example, the changes in the social media strategy of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Initially, only one account was available on each social networking platform. They were centrally implemented, managed, and main- tained by the Director of New Media, Brandon Friedman. In 2011, the VA Directive 6515 allowed the use of collaborative social media technologies throughout the organization and all 153 VA hospitals are now allowed to host their own social media accounts and locally con- nect to their audiences. Coordinating and curating content across different social media platforms and the existing outlets can be organized with a Google calendar. As oneTip: Get employees and of the social media directors says, “At the enterprise level, content curat-experts involved ... don’t ing is decentralized to a degree. We use a Google calendar right now fordo it by yourself. They’re content alignment. This is something new we’ve just been doing this in thepassionate about their last month. For example, my little cell here, we primarily are concernedjob and will help grow with the content on Facebook, Twitter, and to a lesser degree some of thethe agency’s efforts in a other channels I mentioned. But we have a visual information shop, so it’spositive direction. a completely different office in here, all they do are imagery and video, as an example. They will primarily contribute to Flickr and YouTube, but also Facebook on a regular basis. We have journalists and photographers and videographers who go out and capture stories about the [agency]. Well, we also try and capture that, we’ll either repurpose that or occasionally we’ll get them to do some more social media-specific content that we can then put up on whatever the appropriate pres- ence is, and they can do it directly.” The calendar is used to align content with communication priorities, scheduled events, general releases per month, themes, and ad-hoc issues. A calendar helps to keep track of ongoing and reoccurring events that are scheduled in advance, reminds the office where to update what content and provides an overview of the density of updates per unit and even down to the individual team level or geographic region. Including satellite or regional offices in the efforts helps to give local events exposure on social media channels, but also reduces the burden on a central social media group to be the sole provider of new content. Scott Horvath, USGS’s social media lead, recently explained workload distribution and fre- quency of updates in his agency in a blog post on GovLoop: “As far as who is taking the lead in coordination then that would be me. The amount of time it takes to respond is really dependent on the event. On days where there’s nothing major occurring then we typically end up posting 3–8 tweets per day. We always have at least two people on the main Twitter account each day. One person is on throughout the week monitoring and some tweeting, while the other person is rotated each day, and [they] are typically spread out across the country. In total there are three people that are rotated on the weekly schedule and five that share rota- tion during the week. After hours is tricky. Many of us already use Twitter so while we don’t actively respond on weekends and after hours like we do during the week, we do still see what is flowing through and can choose to respond if we feel it is justified to do so. When a 27

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Governmentmajor event occurs, like an earthquake, then we all make sure that we are paying attention atthe same time to help cover each other. Because we have specific people that handle specificareas of science then we assume they will be the ones responding. But if they tell us theyneed backup or aren’t available then others will cover. We also communicate through variousways in order to stay in touch with each other. Overall because the workload is distributed itdoesn’t take a lot of time from each person to monitor, respond, and share.”Sharing Content on TwitterTwitter provides a series of buttons that can be easily integrated into a government site to helpvisitors promote formally approved content and share it on Twitter.Twitter’s strength is that it allows users to share other types of rich-media content, such aspictures, videos, or blog posts. This includes content posted on third-party, content-sharingsites, such as Flickr, Photobucket, or YouTube. All currently approved content-sharing sites arelisted on HowTo.gov, including guidelines on how to use the sites. 28

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgIn addition to linking to existing content on content-sharing sites, many government users arealso uploading content directly from their smartphones to official government Twitter accounts.Applications such as Twitpic or Instagram can be used to upload and distribute pictures duringlive events to inform the public in real time and help to show real human interactions. Belowis an @Instagram Twitter update (01/03/2012).URL ShortenersFor many agencies, 140-character updates are not enough space to convey the message theywant to send. Agencies have found creative ways to use Twitter to point their followers to lon-ger blog updates or include links to other media, such as press releases on the official govern-ment website or photo-sharing services (such as Flickr or Yfrog). This practice has spurred thecreation and use of URL shorteners, online services that reduce long URLs to very short linksthat can be inserted into a tweet and leave enough space for a description. Popular examplesinclude TinyURL.com or Bit.ly. The official U.S. government URL-shortener service, Go.USA.gov,helps “government employees create short .gov URLs from official government domains, suchas .gov, .mil, .si.edu, or .fed.us URLs.”44. See https://go.usa.gov/ (login required). 29

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentURLs shortened with Go.USA.gov are customizable and therefore unique to a specific event,or they highlight a given topic. The use of the official U.S. government URL shortener hasthe added value of creating URLs in a sanctioned environment. The shortened URLs have aspecific format that indicates the official nature of the service and therefore implies credibility.Users are potentially less reluctant to open a link, as the following example shows.Measuring the Effectiveness of TwitterGovernment agencies using social media—and especially Twitter –need to show how this ismaking a difference. So far, government’s measurement activities have been highly regulatedand cookie policies have restricted the collection and analysis of user data. The main goal formeasuring impact should be to show how the use of Twitter can support the mission of anagency.Consider the following Twitter network, created using the social media network analysissoftware NodeXL. Tweets were collected from all those Twitter accounts using the hashtag#FedTweets, which resulted in the top graphic in the very early days. The hashtag was usedby the organizers of a social media webinar offered by GSA’s web manager university. Leadingup to the webinar, only a small group with a handful of Twitter users started to use the #fedt-weets hashtag. The network was initially relatively small and basically shows up in group con-versations among a few specialists. The expansion of the network is seen in Figure 5 on thefollowing page.The second Twitter network downloaded on the day of the webinar shows a growing numberof Twitter users actively engaged in the conversation about the use of Twitter in government.They were answering each other’s questions and interacting with the organizers and speakersin the center of the #FedTweets Twitter network. The extensive Twitter network can be inter-preted as an increase of engagement and participation, but also shows the usefulness of thecontent an agency is sharing via Twitter.The practices for measuring and gaining insights into the impact of government Twitter usevary widely across agencies. Some agencies view the number of retweets and @mentions theyreceive as an indicator that citizens are paying attention to the official government updates.A social media director explains: “With Twitter, what we do know, we’re now looking at mea-sures of reach in addition to just like followers. So, we’re putting together a little dashboardthat will try to get an assessment of how many individuals were reached by the message. Soby looking at peoples’ followers and how many retweets that have occurred, we are looking toobtain a more robust social media monitoring tool, so we can look at sentiment and influenc-ers in our budget for next year.”Other agencies are using social media monitoring dashboards, such as Radian6, for weeklytrend analysis. The results are trending topics that provide insights about the conversationsrelated to the agency. Insights beyond the general topics discussed also capture the senti-ments of the conversations, provide a sense of the volume, and allow conclusions about theurgency of the trending topics. Moreover, insights can include top posts, most-commented-onposts, or most shared video. These insights will help to gain an understanding of what contentand themes are salient during a specific day or week. 30

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgFigure 5: #FedTweets 31

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentGSA provides additional insights using the platform GovClicks.us, a service provided byMeasuredVoice. The site provides an overview of the top-clicked links per day and shortenedURLs used for Twitter updates.Another mechanism for gaining insight into an agency’s performance on Twitter is a free scor-ing platform called Klout.com. While its measurement mechanisms are not openly revealed,the platform compares government Twitter accounts and ranks the agencies’ Twitter activitiesbased on several different dimensions: number of followers, updates, retweets, mentions, andchanges over time and in comparison to other similar accounts.Figure 6: The Results of NASA’s Klout ScoreSource: (http://www.klout.com/#/nasa/kloutstyle) 32

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgOther departments are ranked as specialists, pundits, or broadcasters:• Treasury is a specialist, defined by Klout as: You may not be a celebrity, but within your area of expertise your opinion is second to none. Your content is likely dedicated to a spe- cific topic or industry with a focused, highly engaged audience.• CDC.gov is a pundit, defined as: You don’t just share news, you create the news. As a pundit, your opinions are widely known and highly trusted. You’re regularly recognized as a leader in your industry. When you speak, people listen.• HHS.Gov is a broadcaster, defined as: You broadcast great content that spreads like wild- fire. You are an essential information source in your industry. You have a large and diverse audience that values your content.• Navy is a networker: You know how to connect to the right people and share what’s important to your audience. You generously share your network to help your followers. You have a high level of engagement and an influential audience.While the scoring mechanism is not transparent, Klout scores are currently providing the bestinsights available and can help in understanding how well an agency performs on Twitter. Acomparison with the communication strategy and overall mission of the agency can then pro-vide additional insights.Appendix IV provides an overview of Klout scores by agency (last updated in January 2012). 33

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government 34

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgPart II:Twitter Features 35

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government Understanding Twitter’s Functions One of the big differences between Twitter and a social networking service like Facebook is that Twitter has an asymmetric follower model: anyone can follow a public Twitter account without pre-approval or expectation of reciprocity. Twitter does offer the option of protecting an account, requiring each follower to be approved by the account owner before content is viewable. As a government entity, an agency does not need to follow back every one of its fol- lowers. This may lead to an unbalanced follower/followed account, but on Twitter there is no expectation of reciprocity. For example, the White House Twitter account currently has more than 2,600,000 followers, but only follows about 150 government Twitter accounts. As an agency establishes its Twitter presence, it should, however, consider the content it wants to deliver and the image it wants to portray. Many government agencies tend to follow other government agencies at the local, state, and federal level. A good strategy is to look for other established accounts that follow a similar communication mission and follow them back to understand successful practices. Retweeting—Sharing Information An agency may want to consider forwarding or sharing of someone else’s message, known as retweeting. In other words, a Twitter account holder finds another Twitter user’s updates compelling and shares the original message with all of her followers—she retweets the original tweet. Retweeted messages are highlighted with the RT symbol: and the account name that has retweeted the message. This practice is an easy way to reuse existing information that has popped up in an agency’s Twitter news feed. The web interface of Twitter.com currently does not allow any changes to the original mes- sage. Twitter desktop applications such as TweetDeck or HootSuite, however, do allow editing so that additional comments can be added to the original message. Other practices include a hat tip, abbreviated as h/t or ht, and the addi- tion of a Twitter account where a specific message originated. This prac-Tip: Use direct attribution tice attributes content to another author—giving him or her a hat tip oras much as possible to highlighting that the original content was heard through them. Anotherhighlight the original source practice is to add “OH” for overheard—used for things an agency wantsof Twitter updates. to share that were said or heard offline (or at least not on Twitter). It is usually used without direct attribution to a specific person, either because it is not possible or because the originator of the attributed material might not want their identity revealed. Retweets, HT, or OH messages can increase the audience by thousands: as soon as content is seen as valuable enough to be shared, an agency has the potential to increase its reach into networks of those people willing to retweet the messages. In comparison with direct 36

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgcommunication to all followers of an account, retweets’ value is the word-of-mouth functionthat helps to spread messages.Asking for retweets has become acceptable practice and is used as a mechanism to gainlegitimacy and increase reach.@-repliesIn case an agency wants to reply directly to a tweet from a Twitter account it is following,@replies can be used. A tweet that starts with @username is considered a direct response toan update. The tweet will show up in the agency’s updates and all followers can read it, butit will also show up in the news feed of the person who was directly addressed. The wholeconversation including retweets and @replies to the original message can be traced by anyoneinterested in the thread, as the following example shows:@replies are also a good way to draw attention to a specific issue. As an example, when anagency tweets about a town hall meeting, it can provide the URL to the meeting website, andadd several organizational Twitter accounts (such as neighboring localities, local media, civicleagues, etc.). These messages then show up in their news feeds. The @mentions will likelyincrease awareness of an event or of information the agency would like to share. Not only isthis a way to increase social awareness, but it also increases the likelihood that account hold-ers will share the tweet with their own network of followers.@mentions provide the opportunity to send some-one a message who is not directly following anagency’s Twitter handle—instead of sending a directmessage (through Twitter’s messaging service). Toencourage another Twitter account holder to followan agency, a tweet with @TheirAccountName mightprompt a follow back, so that the direct messagefeature can be used: 37

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentHashtagsA hashtag, denoted by the # sign in front of a keyword, is used as a categorization technique:the hashtag highlights specific keywords in a tweet that can then be used as search termsthroughout the Twitter universe. Hashtags are a great way to catalog updates and cater themto different audiences. The advantage is that an agency does not need to follow everyone whois using the same hashtag. Instead, account holders can save a search for a specific hashtag(for example, #gov20 for Government 2.0 or #opengov for Open Government) and go back tothis search now and then to see what people are talking about. A hashtag is clickable, similarto a link, and the search for a hashtag results in a list of all updates that have ever used thesame hashtag. Very popular hashtags can become trending topics.Another Twitter tradition, #FF (Follow Friday) is used to recommend an agency’s favor-ite Twitter users. A Follow Friday update includes a list of Twitter handles (@YourName).Together with retweets, #FF marks what some people refer to as Twitter love, since directingan agency’s Twitter network to the agency’s own favorite will likely result in more followers forthose accounts.Hashtags are an evolving way to track conversations by topic. Twitter has not yet designed anintuitive way to follow all threaded discussion on a specific topic, so that sorting and search-ing through hashtags is still the state of the art in tracking topics of interest.Table 3: Do’s and Don’ts for the Use of Twitter Hashtags Dos Don’ts Use zero to one hashtags #Do # Not #Hashtag #every #word #in #your #tweet. per tweet. Only pick one that clearly fits into the Don’t string together as many popular hashtags as possible to receive current use or discussion attention. used by other users of the #DontUseMadeUpHashtagsThatMakeNoSense hashtag.Direct MessagingDirect messages are similar to direct e-mails and can only be sent to those accounts that fol-low an agency back. They are directly delivered to the e-mail account associated with theTwitter account. Using the direct message function is a result of an initial decision of whomto follow back and whether following might be interpreted as endorsement. One social mediadirector highlights: “On Twitter we don’t follow people back that we don’t have an official rela-tionship with, or that is not a local, state, or federal entity. We don’t want to imply that wesupport or endorse an individual and their opinions and different things, so we just don’t fol-low unless we have that relationship. So direct messages not so much.”The Washington State Department of Transportation has set up a Twitter account that followscitizens back, so that they can set up a direct message alert that is sent to their cellphones.The “know where you go” Twitter pilot updates commuters with real-time travel advice forSeattle-area travel, Canadian border wait times, mountain reports, and aviation updates. Thedirect message service can also be used in reverse: Citizens following the agency can requestdetailed updates and receive a direct message back via Twitter, tailored to their geographiclocation and needs: 38

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgAggregators: Twitter FallsTwitter falls are third-party services that use the Twitter API to collect tweets, either thoseposted by specific Twitter accounts or based on searches of keywords or hashtags. The tweetsare displayed in real time and are falling into the display page. This type of tweet aggrega-tor is useful in many different circumstances: Twitter falls can, for example, be used as backchannels at conferences, press conferences, public meetings, etc. Other application areas caninclude monitoring of specific hashtags, such as the #SOTU hashtag use leading up to theState of the Union address. Aggregating tweets in one place provides insights into the generaldirection in which topics are discussed on Twitter.The following example shows one third-party application called TwitterFall.com with the real-time results of the #fedtweets hashtag. 39

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentTwitter MemesTwitter users are creating so-called memes as their use of the microblogging service evolves.Memes include the creation of a topic-relevant hashtag that describes a specific event, suchas a conference or a public speech (#SOTU used for the State of the Union Address). Someof these memes are temporary and only capture conversations leading up to and during anevent, then the meme dwindles after the event. Other memes persist over time and are widelyaccepted among Twitter users. One of these persistent trends is the “Follow Friday” hashtag(#FF). The following example shows how the White House promotes H1N1 content updatesavailable through different government Twitter accounts using #FF:Many memes can also be found in the trends or trending topics section on the Twitter page.Below are the top trends on Twitter on May 2, 201155. Trending topics on Twitter on the morning after the White House made the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killedby U.S. Navy Seals. 40

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgTwitter ListsEvery day, several hundred Twitter updates can pile up in an agency’s news feed, which canbe discouraging and at times overwhelming. To avoid this, lists are an efficient way to orga-nize important Twitter accounts and quickly access only their updates in a targeted search byusing the list feature ( ).Account names can be added to a list, even accounts an agency does not follow. Note thatTwitter users can remove themselves from a list an agency has created. As an example, theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting more than 20 different Twitter accountsfor its diverse audiences.6 Instead of the EPA following all accounts, it can put them on a listlabeled “all EPA Twitter accounts.” In turn, Twitter allows its users to follow other users’ listsinstead of following someone directly. This practice avoids endorsements, but the accountholder still gets the updates. Below is EPA’s “EPARegion9” Twitter list.7Twitter SearchLike Facebook, Twitter has become a social search engine. People tend to pay attention toupdates within their own self-determined networks. To understand what an agency’s constitu-encies or audience members are talking about, Twitter’s powerful search mechanism is veryhelpful: http://twitter.search.com.The search tool can be used to search in several different ways: for specific keywords orhashtags (using the #-sign), for people (in case the Twitter account name is unknown),organizations or events. The search function provides an easy way to listen in to ongoingconversations and so monitor how an agency or a hot topic related to an agency’s mission ismentioned on Twitter. Even if agencies opt out of participating in social media like Twitter, itdoesn’t mean that their constituencies are not talking about them in these media. The searchtool will keep a finger on the conversational pulse, even if the agency chooses not to post con-tent directly.6. See http://www.epa.gov/epahome/socialmedia.html#Twitter for a full list of EPA’s Twitter accounts.7. http://twitter.com/#!/EPAregion9/environment 41

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of Government Twitter Search provides a powerful mechanism to filter noise from the thousands of messages using the same hashtag. Underneath the searchTip: Save search results as box, Twitter displays the current trending topics catered to a user’s geo-an RSS feed in a reader. graphic location or IP address. As an example, the following search displays all the messages that were posted using the keyword Government 2.0. 42

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgAppendix I: ResourcesGovernment Twitter Guides• GSA HowTo.gov microblogging guide: http://www.howto.gov/social-media/microblogging• Mashable Twitter guide: http://mashable.com/tag/twitter/• GovLoop Twitter guides: • 15 Commandments for Government Agencies on Twitter: http://www.govloop.com/ page/15-commandments-for-government-agencies-on-twitter • 12 Commandments for Government Employees on Twitter: http://www.govloop.com/ profiles/blogs/new-twitter-guides-for-government-agencies-and-employees• NARA (2010). Guidance on Managing Records in Web 2.0/Social Media Platforms. http:// www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/bulletins/2011/2011-02.html.Official Twitter.com resources:• Embedding photos into a tweet update: https://dev.twitter.com/media/photos• Embedding Twitter on a government website: https://dev.twitter.com/docs/twitter-for-websites• Help when an account is compromised: https://support.twitter.com/groups/33-report-a- violation/topics/122-reporting-violations/articles/31796-my-account-has-been-compromised• Automating helps and guidelines: https://support.twitter.com/articles/76915• USG Twitter Wiki: http://twitter.pbworks.com/w/page/1779986/USGovernmentSocial Media-Related Twitter Hashtags #fedtweets Used to discuss Twitter best practices in government #gov20 Used by Government 2.0 community to discuss the newest developments in the use of Web 2.0 technologies #openGov Used for all topics concerning the Open Government Initiative #oGov #egov Used for messages concerning the use of technology in government #opendata Used for discussions and conversations around Open Data topics in the public sector. 43

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government IBM Center for The Business of GovernmentAppendix II: NARA’s Social MediaRecordkeeping Guidelines (2010)Initial social media recordkeeping discussions and experimentation at the White House werefollowed by the National Archive and Records Administration’s social media recordkeepingguidelines published in October 2010 (NARA, 2010). NARA reiterates the definition of federalrecords according to the Federal Act 44 U.S.C. 3301 as:• All books, papers, maps, photographs, machine readable materials, or other documentary materials, regardless of physical form or characteristics;• Made or received by an agency of the United States Government under Federal law or in connection with the transaction of public business, and;• Preserved or appropriate for preservation by that agency or its legitimate successor as evidence of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, operations, or other activities of the Government or because of the informational value of data in them.• Records retention/Public Records Request (options include downloading xml for your tweets daily for records retention or using a service like TwitterMail or TwInbox which lets you automate record retention by using e–mail)• Back up your Twitter accountFor a full overview of policies guiding use of web-based technologies including social mediaapplication see summary overview Appendix III. 44

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Working the Network: A Manager’s Guide for Using Twitter in Government www.businessofgovernment.orgAppendix III: Summary Timeline ofRegulations, Acts and PoliciesA summary timeline of regulations, acts and policies for the use of social media in the publicsector appears on the following two pages. 45